All The Makings of An Apocalypse
by wemightbekillers
Summary: A series of one-shots mostly centered around Murphy. Expect just about anything, it's the zombie apocalypse after all.
1. Different Kind of Mercy

**Rating:** T for now. The rating will probably change, but you'll have plenty of warning ahead of time.  
><span><strong>Warnings:<strong> Dark-ish themes (zombie apocalypse after all), and a few curse words I guess.  
><span><strong>Setting:<strong> Set after the episode _Going Nuclear. _No specific place or time, just definitely before _Doctor of the Dead. _If you haven't watched anything up till that point, you're gonna get spoiled and a few things probably won't make any sense.  
><span><strong>AN:** I generally dislike campy B-Movie type stuff, but for some strange reason I really enjoyed this show. Particularly Murphy. Decided to write a series of one-shots that mostly center around him. Sometimes it'll be in his perspective, sometimes not. Maybe they'll be some shipping, maybe not. Dunno. Small fandom here so I'll be probably updating for my own amusement. Any of these one-shots can be read as a self contained story, or just a series of moments with particular order or time. I'll most likely update randomly whenever I feel compelled to write, _but_ I can be encouraged to write more often with any suggestions or requests. Anyway, enjoy.

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><p>The stairwell is dimly lit and incredibly loud. Every rushed step bounces off the tight walls, ricocheting all around and making it hard to hear. Not that there's much to say at the moment. Murphy's in his own head right now and Roberta's just trying hard to breathe through the stitch in her side. It's hard to see much detail, but she can just make out the outline of his face in the light streaming through a window high above. She catches sight of him at every tenth step in the shafts of late afternoon sunlight; the curve of his shoulders, sweat plastering the shirt to his back, the pulse in his neck. Watching his retreating back is the only thing keeping the present dizziness from climbing those last two flights at bay.<p>

Another turn of the stairs and his breath doesn't falter like it once did, and hasn't for a long while, she notes. Once, she feared he wouldn't make it to California. That whatever he was injected with was a ticking time-bomb that could at any moment explode, and their whole journey to save the last stragglers of humanity would've been for nothing. Now, she's not so sure. Morbidly cocooned in that body bag weeks ago and fighting back the instinct to run when the Zs swarmed in, she watched him from the small sliver she allowed herself to peek through. The change of his eyes when they caught hers, the death on this skin, and the unnatural power that took root in him somewhere along their road trip that made him impervious to a hoard that would tear a him apart until there's nothing left to give mercy to; barely human at all.

It was then she had realized that Murphy could outlive them all.

It would have been a comforting thought if she truly believed he would willingly hand himself over for the cure, but this is _Murphy_ and he's naturally disinclined to do anything sensible like save the human race. He predictably left them in that cold mortuary, and melted into the sea of corpses that swept through the city like a tsunami. And yet... he came back and saved them all. He brought them another week of life in that backpack and for a moment when the others finally subdued their aching hunger and cheered, she thought he saw him smile. They might not make it to California, or maybe, there's just nothing left for them there at all. She's prepared herself for such a failure, but a completely detached part of her mind wonders why he hadn't slipped away from them that day and why he still stays. Regardless of his motives, she hasn't given him any other chances and kept him close by ever since. Their unwilling savior, a prisoner once again.

It's the fourth flight up and every step is a challenge as she struggles to keep pace. It takes one missed step, and she buckles. She cries out when her knee breaks her fall and a lance of pain shoots all the way up her leg. She senses his indecision above her, the momentum carrying him a few more steps ahead before he halts. Without the pounding of their feet, the stairway echoes now with the groaning of the undead not far behind. Loud, relentless. He turns and his eyes meet hers.

For a split second, Roberta forgets who he is and reaches out a hand. "Murphy!"

For a split second, he hesitates just like she feared he would.

The dozen or so steps between them seem to stretch on for a hundred miles and the look that greets her is empty, impassive. _Dead_. He'd do it, she realizes. He could leave her here and he wouldn't give her mercy. _Maybe it's time for a different kind of mercy_, she remembers him saying once, and the blood runs cold in her veins.

And yet, just when she thinks she's finally figured him out, he bounds down the stairs with a something like a snarl of irritation or panic or both. He curls his arm around her waist and heaves her up to her feet with a curse. "Get _up_, Warren. Can't carry you the whole way."

Her leg protests and they only make it a couple more steps until it shakily gives out on her. It's badly sprained, she guesses, and her nail breaks on the railing trying to bite down the rising wave of pain. "I can't put weight on it – you're gonna have to try."

"We won't make it," he says as he glances back past his shoulder where the incoming mob of Zs have reached their landing. She thinks of mercy, of that lone bullet tucked into the folds of her sleeve she's been saving since New York and if she's willing to risk dropping it with the shaking of her hands to load her pistol. _Not now_, she pleads to whoever still cares. _Not like this __– and not with this asshole. _

"Hang on, I got a really stupid idea," he says and before she even has a chance to argue, he molds himself against her back without an inch of space between them, his breath at her ear. His arms cross over her chest protectively and she can feel the prickly itch of stubble against her skin. "Don't move," he whispers.

Lacking any other alternative, she takes a deep breath of the blood and death that clings to him and holds it in when the bodies skim by, parting past them like a river around a stone. The stink of decay washes past them, clumsily laps at their sides, and it seems to take forever for them to pass. His hold is tight, as if at any moment she could be torn from his grasp and for a while, they stay like that long after the mob had passed. His heart beating eerily between her shoulder blades; breath warming the back of her neck.

"I had _no_ idea that would work," he half-chuckles into her hair, slowly releasing her. She notes he still keeps one arm anchored around her waist however, apparently considerate enough to not let her drop where she stands. "That could have turned out really messy. C'mon, let's head down before they come back."

Gritting her teeth from the pain, she nods and shuffles down the steps against him. It's not until they reach the second landing does she voice the thought that's been burning through her mind with every step.

"Why'd you do it?"

From the corner of her eye, she watches the oddly _alive_ expression of annoyance flicker across his features that doesn't seem to fit with the rest of him. A roll of his dead eyes, the tightness of his mouth, lips stained at one corner with something dark she doesn't want to know the origin of. She hasn't seen him eat in days. "You mind elaborating that for me?"

"Help me," she says, oddly at ease about the subject. "You could've let them get me. Made something up to the rest of the team or run off." For a long moment, he says nothing and the stairwell is quiet save for her struggling breaths as she navigates her way down carefully. "So why did you do it?"

"Temporary lapse of judgment," he says finally with a one-sided shrug. "If you're gonna start acting weird about it, next time I won't bother."

Roberta doesn't know if that's the truth or merely a convenient answer right now, but doesn't care enough to push it. She _hasn't_ figured him out yet and he might not save the world, but she's slowly starting to believe that he'll stick around because he needs her to save _himself_. Briefly, she thinks he's far too late for saving and wonders if he'll ever ask for the only kind of mercy she knows how to give and dreads the day she'll have to pull the trigger.

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><p><span><strong>AN:** If you have any suggestions/corrections to help improve my writing, please let me know. This is a really, _really_ small corner of this site so it helps to get any feedback and find out if anyone's even interested to continue reading this. Thanks for reading!


	2. The Cage

**Rating:** T for some blood and a few curse words.  
><span><strong>Setting:<strong> The day after the episode _Zunami.  
><em>**A/N: **Surprised this got any attention considering the small fandom on here, so thanks a lot for that. Really does keep me writing knowing someone out there is interested to read it. Anyway, this chapter was inspired by a suggestion in my first review, hope you all enjoy.

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><p>A shot rings out from their rooftop. Its echo slowly fades away until the city falls silent again in a way it never did before the world went to hell, and Murphy closes his eyes, waiting for the unmistakeable sound of a body hitting the pavement. It doesn't disappoint. Four floors up and he can still hear the wet splatter clear as day.<p>

The kid, 10K or whatever, mumbles something under his breath and reloads. For a full eight seconds, there's nothing but the wind whistling through the buildings and the gentle cooing of the pigeon coop at his back. Near bliss... until a fresh shot cuts through the silence again, causing the panicked birds to flutter noisily against the cage once more.

"Will you give it a rest already?" He says, adjusting the back of the lawn chair he claimed earlier. "You're starting to give me a headache."

A headache is the farthest thing from the truth however. It's one thing to take them out when they're a threat, but it's another thing entirely to take pot shots when they're just wandering around not harming anyone. For the past half hour, watching the kid brain Z after Z was starting to creep him the hell out with each corpse decorating the pavement. As the days go by and his body seemingly rotting around him, in his mind, each one has his face and it's hard to ignore how much mercy is starting to feel like murder.

The kid barely spares him a glance before readjusting the sights on his rifle. "Pa said I had to practice every day."

_What your Pa don't know won't kill him a _third_ time_, he might have said once just to spite the boy, but he remembers the way 10K grinned around mouthful of food just yesterday, hand outstretched for a high five, and Murphy reins in his tongue. Sort of. "It's a waste of ammo," he says instead. "He ever teach you that?"

"Murphy – don't start," Warren says automatically from inside the coop, half-distracted and slowly reaching out a hand with what few crumbs they have to spare to tempt a fresh meal. "10K, he's right. You've practiced enough today."

Chided like a child, Murphy sighs and glances up at the darkening skies, threatening rain. Thankfully, 10K lets up without complaint and instead busies himself by setting up all the empty jugs and gallons they own to catch every drop of rain they can get. They're a couple hours behind the hoard, the veteran Zs lagging behind with what few limbs still remain, and the team decided to camp on the nearby rooftop of a small clinic to wait them out. Looking around the place, it seems like they weren't the only ones with the same idea.

The set up can easily be described as a hobo's wet dream. The roof has a small makeshift 'ceiling' at one side sheltering a couple of mildewed mattresses. Scattered around in what Murphy assumes was meant to be a feeble attempt at a living room, are a handful of lawn chairs and milk crates circled around a pair of metal garbage cans, likely the source of heat at night. Someone also got the bright idea to make use of the city's flying pests as a reasonably consistent food source, but nobody informed the pigeons that their previous owners were probably heading south with the hoard because they're still around. They found the door to the coop hanging open, the birds still nesting inside. Free to leave, but preferring the cage.

Briefly, he thinks of the morgue and how he should've just kept on walking and hates life's little ironies.

"Give him a break," Warren says at his side now, clasping a bird struggling vainly in her hands. "He's probably bored out of his mind."

"Not my problem," he stretches out, trying to get comfortable in the rusty chair. "We should've hit the road yesterday."

Warren frowns, well aware of his annoyance on the subject. After they had their meal, she decided it was best to resupply and rest for the night. They had been traveling hard going on so little for so long and were all exhausted. He could give them that. Come morning, they'd leave the city behind and go on their merry way. Except they didn't. At dawn, the heavy skies promised rain and she insisted to hang around another day, but a part of him couldn't shake the feeling she was simply stalling since Mack and Addy hadn't caught up with them yet.

_Look at me_, he told her earlier this morning when he heard the news. _Really _look_. At. Me. The fate of the human race is falling apart here and __you want to wait around __for a pair of kid__s?_

She didn't confirm or deny his accusation and for a long moment, nothing was said as he watched the way her eyes scanned him, slowly taking their time. Her face was unreadable, lips set in a grim line when she took in his eyes. She sighed then, the little breath of air brushing his face in the small space between them, cramped in a too small office with the remnants of an inspirational poster hanging from the wall that clashed horribly with the stoic atmosphere of the morgue. The owner must've had a morbid sense of humor in life.

_First we __get __more water, then we go. Not everyone has your endurance these days, _she had said in a hard tone that left no room for argument. And that was that. She left him there without another word; the kitten on the poster cheerfully reminding him to 'hang in there'.

"Here," she says, ignoring his comment and shoving the bird at his chest. "Make yourself useful."

"W-what?" He fumbles the fluttering pigeon in his hands, wincing with every peck at his fingers. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Twist the neck and crush the head," she says casually and slips back into the coop, presumably to trap another.

It takes a moment for the absurdity of her statement to sink in, and he laughs. "Really? We're worried about zombie _pigeons_ now?"

"I've seen a zombie dog once," 10K supplies, settling onto a nearby milk crate, rifle across his knees. "And a coon… I think. Road kill. Could've been a cat."

Murphy's heard rumors of such things about the virus, but hasn't seen any firsthand. Traveling through New York City with Hammond, he remembers how they were forced to resupply at an underground subway station where a whole community was getting by. Didn't last long though, large numbers never do since all it takes is one idiot to ruin a good thing. A couple of days later, they ran into one of the few lucky survivors on their way out of the city and heard how a fresh wave of the outbreak hit them hard. The cause: a zombie snow leopard from The Central Park Zoo. Would've made an epic action sequence to watch in slow motion.

"Huh," Murphy murmurs flatly and gives the bird a curious look. "So if it turns, you think it could still fly?"

10K shrugs, but Warren just spares him a warning glare she still manages to pull off convincingly with a fistful of bird. "No experimenting, Murphy. I do _not_ want to find out."

"Killjoy," he mutters and the kid snickers before a bird gets dumped in his lap as well.

They spend the next half hour or so plucking feathers in relative silence save for Murphy's occasional complaints and Warren's instructions. Every so often, the wind violently picks up and swirls the discarded bloody feathers between them, but the sky refuses to break. An unsatisfying drizzle falls instead that leaves him itching to dump a bucket of water over himself to get it over with. He's barely half done gutting his bird while she's on her second, readying up Doc and Cassandra's share when they get back from scavenging the building down below.

They've been gone nearly an hour now, he notes, usually around the time everyone starts getting anxious for someone's return. No one ever says it, but they're all holding their breaths and thinking the exact same thing: are they coming back _alive_? Hell, even he can admit it. He'd miss the old bastard and it's swell entertainment watching the kid try to hide every intimidated soulful glance he sends Cassandra's way.

"You got blood on you," 10K says suddenly, pointing a bloody finger vaguely at his own ear as a mirror.

Annoyed and just about ready to spear the thing with a stick and call it done, he roughly wipes the spot with the back of his hand. "Got it?"

"Nope," Warren says, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. It's a rare thing; that smile. And rarer still directed at him. Her face is too sharp and hardened to pull it off well, but he decides it's charming in its contradiction. "It's all over, you've been rubbing your head on and off this whole time."

A snort of amusement escapes her and he imagines he must look like a day old Z, sticky with blood, and gets the unsaid joke. "Yeah, laugh it up. _Ver__rr__y _funny."

"What's with that anyway?" She sobers at last, stripping out what he thinks might be a gizzard. It _plops_ wetly on the ground, the scent of copper snapping far back on his tongue stronger than ever now with a new gust of wind.

Murphy tears his wandering attention back to her face. "What's with what?"

"Your tic," she clarifies, eyes still on her work. "I catch you messing with your head a lot. Eating, sleeping, standing around being your usual annoying self. You do it all the time."

Now that he's reminded of it, Murphy tries to resist the impulse of reaching for his hairline and shrugs. Most of the time, he isn't even aware he does it. Used to be, it was just the need to touch and be touched. In a world built by blood and bullets, where his mere existence is in a constant state of tension, the touch of fingers though his hair and the rake of nails on his skin is just damn soothing.

Lately though, there's been a constant itch under his skin these days, like a mosquito bite he unconsciously seeks out and wonders later how he got the blood under his nails. It's a harrowing thing, watching your body deteriorate in front of your eyes. It's not noticeable at first, not really. One minute, you're casually scratching the back of your hand, and the next you find neat little patches peeling off like fried chicken skin. There's no real way to deal with that shit. So he ignores it and in turn, ignores the way he scratches some more.

He doesn't tell her any of these things however. He might not have the chains or an orange jumpsuit, but he's still her prisoner and she's still his jailor and that kind of talk serves neither of them in the end. He remembers how she called him friend yesterday, yet they both know she wouldn't have blinked an eye at giving him her brand of _mercy _ages ago if it wasn't for the blood running through his veins like a shield. And him... well... he was ready to leave them all to die after all. Call him a cynic, but any sort of real friendship born out of a world like this is the misplaced optimism of the naive.

"Been watching me sleep?" He evades instead. "If you wanted to cuddle, all you had to do was ask..."

"Sure, I'll take you up on that offer if I ever need to smother you in your sleep," she says smoothly, barely glancing up from her work. The kid snorts back a laugh and covers it with a cough, but Murphy just leans the chair on its back legs, bird forgotten as he spares Warren an amused look of which she doesn't return.

"Smothering is a step up from getting stabbed, kid," Murphy drawls, and 10K makes a face at this, probably reminded of the whole blanket fiasco with Cassandra. Yup. He'd definitely miss those faces if the girl ever turns up dead. "I'll take what I can get."

"Knock it off, Murphy," Warren says with that no-nonsense tone he's grown to dislike, but again that not-quite contradictory smile is there, hidden just beneath the hard lines of her face. "Quit flirting and get back to your bird, 'cause I am not gonna clean it for you."

The chair legs hit the cement with a _thump_ at this, stunned she'd actually go there. For a moment he figures there's no point denying it, it takes two to tango after all and if that smile was anything to go by, he's definitely not dancing alone. But then, he remembers who he's talking to and decides that's a whole different sorta line he's better off not toeing and keeps it to himself.

It's times like these, where he's reminded that he's this thing again – _the literal cure to the end of the world_ – that he wishes he wasn't the last guy strapped to that table long ago. That he wasn't immune or whatever the hell he is. Death makes sad stories of us all, but there's nothing quite like the slow death of imprisonment. And his jailor… well… it's hard to see the bars with a smile like that. Makes him almost wish Garnett was still around so he keep hating the cards he's dealt with in peace. Almost.

"Whatever you say," he sighs at last, and catches himself reaching for his hairline far too late, much to the amusement of the others.

Warren jabs her knife his way. "You got a little something right there."

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><p><span><strong>AN:** Again, any comments, corrections or suggestions are appreciated to help improve my writing. Feel free to let me know in a review or a PM. Thanks for reading!


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